


The Place Of Caught Breath

by colazitron



Series: Faux Pagan Verse [3]
Category: SKAM (Norway)
Genre: (the nooreva is very background sorry), Alternate Universe, Getting Together, M/M, Summer Solstice, of sorts, vaguely historical magical times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-16 04:21:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19310515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colazitron/pseuds/colazitron
Summary: It's the summer solstice. There are sacrifices made to a goddess, a bonfire, a dance around a pole, and a stolen kiss or two.





	The Place Of Caught Breath

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N:** Gratulerer med dagen, Isak! And happy Isak's birthday to the rest of us. I love the midsummer solstice and vaguely aesthetic pagan looking things, so here we are. I think this is a verse now. This technically takes place between parts 1 and 2. It can totally be read as a standalone though.

Isak is actually looking forward to the midsummer solstice celebration, despite the fact that he has to play a role in the ritual parts of it. Now that he's done the spring ritual and has blessed two women who suspected they might be with child, that part doesn't make him as nervous anymore. Accepting the offerings to the goddess won't be difficult, but he is a bit sceptical about the solstice pole dance.

He and the village girls are meant to dance around the solstice pole to weave the ribbon decoration around it, which wouldn't be so bad if the whole affair weren't also a bit of a game. The village girls all wear identical dresses and their hair braided around their heads with yellow flowers woven in. While they dance, the boys are meant to figure out which girl is the goddess and if, at the end of the dance, they can catch her, it's meant to be good luck for him. Isak may only be fifteen years old, but even with his hair braided into a crown and a dress on, he's probably going to be a little more recognisable than previous goddesses.

He's not sure if he's more worried about being singled out easily or ignored all together. He is meant to give whichever boy catches him a kiss for good luck, and they're all his friends. He's not sure any of them particularly _want_ to kiss him. He can probably count on Jonas to step in if he's being too awkwardly ignored, at least.

Even too, maybe. Things with Even have been odd occasionally this spring, but they're still friends, still close. He doesn't think anything has gone _wrong_ between them exactly.

So Isak tries to put it out of his mind and just lets his mother help him with the dress before he joins the girls in getting ready. Some of them are clearly a little wary of a boy joining them, but Eva and Noora drag him over to sit on the floor with Vilde, Chris, Sana, and them, and they continue their conversation without a care in the world. Eva sits down with her back to him and hands him a bunch of calendula and marigold blooms.

“Can you do mine?” she asks. Her red hair is a lot longer than his, falling down her back in tousled waves that glow almost like copper in the sunshine.

“Uh, sure,” he says and takes the flowers from her. He knows how to do this, technically. His mother used to ask him to braid her hair a lot when he was little, to teach him how to do it, but it's been a while since they did it habitually. And anyway, she tends to wear hers in long braids over her shoulder, or pinned up. Still, Isak takes a glance at what Vilde is doing to Chris' hair, her brow furrowed in concentration, and gets started.

It's easier to fall back into the rhythm of it than he thought it would be, and soon enough he gives the flowers to Noora so she can hand him one every other turn to weave into Eva's hair. Vilde is hesitantly speculating about whether William Magnusson might kiss her at the solstice pole dance today, and Isak can't quite hide an amused snort at Sana's exasperated cautioning against such hopes. It seems pretty obvious to the whole village that William has his eyes set on Noora, though judging by the way she grimaces down at the flowers, he's not sure she's particularly happy about it.

“I'm a little sad Isak won't be kissing any of us,” Chris says, winking over at him and laughing at the way he rolls his eyes at her.

It's an old joke by now, calling back to the very determined way she had announced that she was going to marry Isak one day back when they were children. Her interest has moved on several times since then, and though Isak gets along well with her, he doesn't think they'd be a good match. So that's probably for the best.

“I think Sara's a little disappointed too,” Eva giggles in front of him, and Isak automatically glances across the room to where Ingrid is braiding Sara's hair. She's not looking back at him, which is lucky, so Isak looks away again before she can catch him at it.

Isak's actually not particularly sad he won't be kissing any of the girls today. He knows he should be, but the thought of kissing any of them sits oddly in his chest, twisting uncomfortably. The only person he's ever kissed was Even, and that was in the context of the spring blessing earlier this year. He didn't mind it, but he also barely remembers feeling anything in particular. It barely counts.

Once Eva's braid is done, Noora offers to do Isak's, and so he sits down and dutifully lets her wind strand after strand of his hair together. He hasn't worn his hair in anything this elaborate since he was a little kid, but it's oddly soothing, feeling Noora's hands in his hair. She's very gentle, tries her best not to tug on his hair too strongly, and knowing her the braid is probably going to come out incredibly exact.

The one Eva does on Noora is a little less so, but Noora laughs and looks at herself in the glass and tells Eva she did perfectly. Then all that's left is to paint their lips and cheeks red with the rose cream before Isak's being fetched to be taken to the bonfire site by Priestess Khadija.

Magnus and Mahdi snicker when they see him and Jonas elbows them both and tells them to shut up from the looks of it, but Isak can see the grin on his face too. Isak meets his gaze briefly and rolls his eyes and gives a tiny shrug just to show he's not mad.

Priestess Khadija has him stand by the fire and then sounds to horn to begin the ritual. She and the novices sing the prayer to the sun while one member of each family comes up to Isak to offer the goddess a sacrifice. In this case it's a small piece of bread that Isak has to bless with a gesture before it gets tossed into the fire. Some people sing along to the song and the younger kids get bored and start chasing each other around, but this celebration is a lot more lax than most of the other ones, so no one minds.

When Isak is done and the song ends for the final time, the girls swarm around Isak, grabbing his hands and pulling him along to the solstice pole. They're all giggling and chatting and swarming around him like bees and Isak is pretty sure if he didn't know, he wouldn't be sure which one was him either.

It's reassuring, feeling like he blends in, and it makes it easier to join in. To laugh and run as fast as he can when the music and singing starts up again though much faster this time. To grab one of the ribbons from the ground, not caring which one it is, and start to dance around the pole so as not to stop the motion. He's practised the steps to the dance enough that he just gets lost in the music and laughter, weaving in and out between the girls, the ribbons getting shorter and shorter and drawing them closer to the pole. There's a general air of laughter and cheering, people singing and clapping along to the song until at last the music stops from one moment to the next.

Some of the girls shriek with laughter, but they all disperse at once, taking off into whichever direction they're facing. Isak doesn't wait to see where anyone else runs – though he sees Noora and Eva running hand in hand – and just bolts.

He's barefoot, but the grass is soft under his feet and he's not even sure he's going to make it to the woods he's running towards, so he's going to worry about that later. He can hear people following him, their footfalls close, but not too close, behind him. He's not sure if he's meant to be relieved and he doesn't dare turn around for fear he'll stumble and fall.

A few times a hand almost grabs at him but he jumps out of the way, twists and turns and laughs when he hears his pursuers curse as they fall behind. They're not giving up though, and Isak can feel his heart race and his lungs start to protest. He's already worked up from the dance that the boys got sit out, so this isn't really a fair chase. It's not meant to be, he supposes.

At the edge of the forest a hand brushes the skirt of his dress and Isak yelps and tries to twist away, but only a few steps later whoever it is gains on him and grabs him by the wrist and yanks.

Isak stumbles and his pursuer wraps his other arm around his waist, scoops him up from the ground for the span of two heartbeats to make sure he doesn't fall, pressing him close to a strong but slim body.

Not one of the grown men, then. Small mercies.

Isak's blood is rushing in his ears and his heart is still racing. He's gasping for breath and swaying on his feet, letting his captor take some of his weight with the arm around his waist.

“Caught you,” Even says between equally panting breaths, and Isak can't help but laugh.

He can feel the way his body relaxes, the adrenaline of the chase fading as they stumble a few paces and Isak reaches out to balance himself against a tree trunk before he turns around to look at Even.

He's staring at Isak with a wide grin, cheeks flushed red with exhaustion, his hair messy from the run. Sunlight dapples his face, shining down to them through the crowns of the trees high above.

Isak grins back.

“Thank you,” he says.

Even laughs a little. “For what?”

“Not letting anyone else get me?” Isak offers with a shrug. He's not sure, exactly. He's just glad it's Even who ended up here with him.

Even shakes his head, still grinning.

“Nothing to do with me. You're just really damn fast.”

Isak wants to point on that he's the one who didn't give up, that he probably made it less interesting for others to try and get to Isak, but he doesn't. He just shrugs again and looks down at the ground, trying to catch his breath. His heart won't stop racing.

When he looks back up, Even's smile has softened a little, but he's still looking at Isak.

“You owe me a kiss now, I think,” he says.

Isak feels his cheeks flush with heat and he's grateful they're probably already as red as they can be. He does owe Even a kiss though, it's the rule of the game. And Even likes these games and rituals, likes believing there's something bigger than them out there in the world, so Isak pushes up onto the balls of his feet, and presses a kiss to Even's lips.

When he pulls back, Even looks surprised, like he wasn't expecting Isak to actually go through with it, and for a moment Isak feels his whole body go weak with shame – of course it was a joke, of course Even doesn't want Isak to kiss him, here in the woods where no one can see, where it's not part of some performance – but then Even grins again, wide and happy.

“Well. Aren't I lucky,” he teases, so Isak gives his chest a shove.

Even laughs as he stumbles backwards and Isak's heart slows down again over the span of their walk back to the bonfire.

Jonas and Mahdi immediately launch into a story about how Magnus tripped chasing after Isak, while Magnus himself squaws his protests about just how undignified it might have looked and hands Isak a piece of bread and a cup of honeyed wine. Even goes to sit with Mikael and Yousef, but when Isak looks over at him he looks back like he could somehow tell, even from all the way on the other side of the fire.

Eva and Noora are sitting huddled close together and Vilde is shyly handing William some food, so he seems to have caught her after all. When turning back to his friends he catches Sana's eyes who nods her head over at Vilde and William and rolls her eyes at him. Isak laughs and shrugs and then turns back to the boys, who are still fighting about how far exactly Magnus got before he fell.

The afternoon passes in a blur of laughter and food and music and some more dancing, and before he knows it, night has fallen and Isak finds he's drunk. Drunk on honeyed wine and the heat of the sun, drunk on laughter and the glow of the fire. Technically, this is his birthday too, though they'll only celebrate it tomorrow, probably with a small cake his mother will have baked at some point when Isak wasn't looking. Tonight is for the solstice and the gods, for the spirits that roam the land between night and day, kept at bay by the roaring bonfire.

People start to leave, carrying their sleeping children back to their houses or pairing off and vanishing into the night. Isak's pretty sure he's going to have to do a few more fertility blessings in the coming month. He watches Jonas chat to Eva and Noora, and Magnus try his luck with Vilde, who's almost painfully polite in her disinterest. Mahdi must have left at some point, at least Isak can't see him. He can't see Even either, but then someone grabs his wrist from behind him, and when Isak whirls around there he is, smiling at him.

His hair looks like finely spun gold in the firelight, and the flames reflect in his usually blue eyes, making them dance like the fire itself.

Isak's breath catches and Even tugs on his arm.

“Come,” he says, quietly enough that only Isak can hear.

Isak gets up from the ground and lets Even pull him away from the fire, back towards the edge of the woods where he'd caught him earlier. The night feels a lot colder once they've left the warmth around the fire, and it's a lot darker too until Isak's eyes adjust to the light of the moon that shines down on them.

“Where are we going?” Isak asks once, but Even doesn't answer him, just pulls him further along until they're past the first line of trees.

It's a lot darker in the forest than it was out in the open, but when Even turns around to Isak he can still see his eyes sparkle and his teeth shine in the dark when he smiles. Even is still holding Isak's wrist in his hand and he pulls him closer by it, his other hand reach out for Isak's face.

There's a terrifying moment, with Even's hand pulling at Isak's braid, pulling strands loose from it where it's starting to fall apart, that Isak considers he might not be with Even at all. That it might be someone – some _thing_ – else that has used the face of someone he trusts to lure him away from the protection of the fire.

But then Even sighs and pulls a flower out of Isak's hair, twirling it between his fingers before letting it fall to the ground.

“Isak,” he sighs, and though he doesn't quite recognise the tone in it, any doubt is wiped from Isak's heart. It's Even. He's sure. He _knows_ Even.

“What's going on?” he asks. “Why are we here?”

He still feels a little drunk, but it's not the night air that makes him shiver, it's not the wine that makes him feel like he's swaying on his feet. When Even grabs him by the waist again and spins him around to lean him up against a tree, he knows what it is.

Even pushes both of his hands into Isak's hair, working the braid loose until it finally gives and his hair falls down over his shoulder, messier and wavier than it usually is. The flowers fall down to the ground, at least most of them, but Even pays them no mind. He wipes his thumbs over Isak's cheeks, though he's pretty sure there can't be much painted red there anymore, and then rubs them over Isak's lips too.

Isak's breath hitches and he can hear his throat click as he swallows heavily in the silent night.

“You're so beautiful, Isak,” Even whispers.

Isak's knees go weak and he reaches up with his hands, wraps his fingers around Even's forearms, and holds on.

 _'It's just the dress, and the hair, and the paint on my face,'_ Isak wants to say, but all that's left of that is the dress, and Even's only looking at his face. So he says nothing, just keeps looking at Even, and when Even ducks his head, leans closer, he moves to meet him.

The first touch of Even's lips is soft. Gentle. Almost cautious. Technically, this is the third time they've done this, but it doesn't feel like it. It doesn't feel like anything Isak has ever felt before. It feels… complete. It feels like it's the only thing there is, like all of his senses are honed in on Even and his lips on Isak's, only expanding slowly when he hears Even sigh, when he feels his hands slide deeper back into his hair. When he remembers he has hands too and panics about where to put them for a moment.

But then Even tilts his head and presses closer, takes a whole step so Isak can feel the solid heat of his body less than a hand's width from his own, and Isak forgets to panic and slides his hands up over Even's arms to put them on his shoulders.

Even's lips move against his and Isak lets him lead, follows along until it becomes natural to respond to Even's kiss.

A kiss.

The thought rings in Isak's head as clear as a bell and when Even opens his mouth wider, swipes his tongue against Isak's, Isak keens. He feels a shiver crawl up his spine and his gut go hot with something new and urgent.

His arms shift to wrap around Even's neck without conscious thought and he pulls him closer like that, leans his full weight back against the tree until Even is pressed all along his front. The tree is a little rough through the thin dress, a knothole digging into his back, but Even is warm against his chest, and when he shifts his feet they slot together from knee to chest.

One of Even's hands leaves his hair and follows the line of his body until his hand wraps around the side of Isak's waist, warm through the thin fabric on his cool skin and firm in the way it holds him. Isak nudges his body forward though he's as close to Even as he can be and tilts his head back when Even's hand on his neck seems to guide him there.

Somehow, the kiss deepens like that, and Isak lets go of anything but these sensations. Even's lips and tongue, his hands. His body pressed close. The soft forest ground underneath his still-bare feet and even the rough bark against his back. He wants to remember this moment forever.

The meeting of their lips turns slicker the longer it goes on, Isak's lip caught between Even's, Even's caught between his, their tongues somewhere in between. Isak isn't really paying attention to the logistics. He doesn't care so long as it feels like this.

By the time they separate, Isak is breathing hard again, his heart racing in his chest like a little rabbit's.

Even puts his forehead against Isak's and groans, both of his hands moving to cup Isak's chin and pulling him into another sweet, slow kiss.

“Gods above, Isak,” Even says, his voice low and rough.

Isak can't help but laugh and wrap his arms around Even's shoulders, pulling them closer until he's hugging Even. Anything Even asks for right now, Isak would give.

“We should go back,” Even says.

Isak makes a protesting noise and holds him a little more tightly. Even laughs, barely a breath, but Isak can hear the amusement anyway.

“Your mother will worry if you're not home soon,” Even says. “It's late.”

Isak knows he's right, but that doesn't mean he's happy about it, so he holds onto Even for a bit longer before letting him go. Even kisses him again, briefly, and then takes his hand.

They don't talk until they're just about to step out of the forest again, when Even stops and pulls Isak back.

“Can I see you again tomorrow?”

Isak looks at him, eyes wide, and tries to commit this to memory too. The way Even's eyes look in the dark, the way he holds himself so still.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yes, of course.”

Even's face breaks open into a wide smile and he leans in closer to press a kiss to Isak's forehead. Isak closes his eyes and breathes him in, him and the night air.

“Race you back to the fire?” Even asks when he pulls away again.

Isak quirks an eyebrow at him. “You'll lose.”

“I've already caught you once,” Even counters.

Isak grins. “Not this time.”

Even laughs and turns to face back to the fire. “On three?”

“On three,” Isak agrees and lets Even count them down. On three, he's off, heart pounding hard again in his chest. If Even were to try, Isak would let himself be caught every time.

 

**The End**


End file.
